[WikiEN-l] Images on Wikipedia

Mon Oct 31 23:58:21 UTC 2005

Wikipedia clearly has a problem with copyright images,
but the way some users are dealing with this has
infuriated many people. Part of the problem is that
the details of what is now needed to define fair use
has now been changed and more categorisation is
required. Thousands of perfectly valid images were
uploaded before this change. Users put in the
information they thought were required at the time.
Now they discover that they are in effect being
accused of not giving enough information and the
images are being deleted, without checking if the
people who uploaded them can supply more information
or a clearer categorisation as NOW required.

One user seems to be intent on pissing off most of
Wikipedia with his approach. Furious users have left
messages on his talk page saying such things as

- We have gone through a long process to get a formula
for these photos which clears them for use and which
has been approved by Mr Wales. I suggest you visit
Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board and
raise any concerns you have before taking action which
will make a lot of people angry.

- your unilateral action is making a lot of people
very angry

- If you look at his "contributions"  you'll see he's
been doing this to a lot of templates lately where
it's quite clear (IMO) fair-use allows the images to
be used. And yes, it's very unilateral: as far as I
can tell he's acting nearly independently, and reverts
edits back without any (or very little) discussion or
consensus.

Another user deleted something from the Commons that
had been wrongly moved to there by someone, when all
that needed to be done was for the image to be moved
from the commons back to where it came from. His
delete screwed up 17 pages where that (very useful)
image had been used. I had to delete the now empty
image space from all 17 pages, then spend weeks
chasing back the original image from the organisation
that had supplied it first time around. But when asked
him politely why he didn't check before unilaterally
deleting he sent a snotty rude reply, and proceeded to
delete a host of other perfectly valid images,
screwing up more pages. 

If people don't know what they are doing they
shouldn't be doing it. And if they aren't legally
trained they should take more care rather than
dreaming up their own idiocyncratic frequently
ridiculous interpretations of the law. Unless someone
tells them to (i) be a bit more careful, and (ii)
check with the original downloader before dumping
images, Wikipedia is going to both lose a lot of
perfectly valid images just in need for more
information and find itself with a lot of pissed off
users whose work is being destroyed by people who seem
in a lot of cases not to know what they are doing and
are making a complete mess of articles which for no
good reason end up stripped of their images. 

Thom

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